子女性别结构对家庭杠杆率影响的实证分析

An Empirical Analysis of the Influence of Children Gender Structure on Household Leverage Ratio

近年来我国家庭杠杆率快速上升,引发各方高度关注。基于中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)2018年的微观数据,实证分析子女性别结构对家庭杠杆率的影响程度。实证结果表明,子女性别比失衡即子女中男孩所占比例的增加,推动了家庭杠杆率的上升;利用倾向得分法、Probit回归等方法进行稳健性检验,结论依然成立。机制分析表明,子女中男孩所占比例的提高刺激了家庭购房需求,并在子女进入成年后的非多套房家庭中发生作用。分样本异质性分析发现,男孩所占比例的增大推动家庭杠杆率上升,这一点在农村家庭和东部地区家庭中更显著,中等杠杆率家庭受的影响更大。

The rapid increase in household leverage in China has raised high concerns in recent years.This paper examines the extent to which the gender structure of children affects household leverage based on micro data from the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)2018.The empirical results show that the imbalance in the child sex ratio,i.e.,the increase in the proportion of boys among children,drives the increase in household leverage,and the findings remain valid using the propensity score method and Probit regression for robustness testing.Mechanistic analysis suggests that the increase in the proportion of boys among children stimulates household demand for property acquisition,and only among non-multiple-suite households whose children enter adulthood.A sub-sample heterogeneity analysis finds that the increase in the proportion of boys drives household leverage,more significantly in rural households and households in the east,with moderately leveraged households being more affected.